Hi-Life

Here's a recipe for mediocrity: writer/director Roger Hedden + actor Eric Stoltz. Previously, the pair collaborated on Bodies, Rest and Motion and Sleep with Me, neither of which exactly set the indie world ablaze; Hi-Life, their latest joint venture, is equally forgettable--the kind of movie that you wind up watching on cable in the middle of an uneventful night, not quite bored enough to find the remote and change the channel. Hedden has assembled a marvelous ensemble cast--in addition to Stoltz, there's Peter Riegert, Charles Durning, Moira Kelly, Daryl Hannah, Campbell Scott, and Mike Leigh regular Katrin Cartlidge--and placed them in the service of a tediously byzantine plot, the gist of which involves Stoltz's attempt to borrow a wad of cash from terminal sucker Scott in order to pay a gambling debt, and the ever-growing snowball of lies Stoltz tells in the process. Trouble is, Hedden is by nature a playwright, and has no use for a movie camera other than as a means of recording the actors' performances; the movie therefore rises and falls on the strength of his dialogue--which means that it mostly falls. Not recommended. (M D'Angelo)